Friday, October 23, 2015

[jules' pics] Canyonlands

After a regulation Moab cappuccino granola banana nut pancake breakfast, we visited the lower, south part, of Canyonlands. My dirt road driving non-abilities (and James reluctance to let me dent the rental car) stopped us visiting the actual Needles up close, but there was, nevertheless, some impressive geology.

In the visitor centres to these places there are fanciful hand-wavey tales of oceans going in and out, and things being uplifted and tilted and eroded. Note layers of white pillows which were once, apparently, sand dunes, interspersed with what was once, um, red mud stuffs.
Canyonlands-1

I suppose we were there at the driest time of year. The signs indicated that the eroded hollows in the surface usually contain water.
Canyonlands-3

Finally, the answer to one of life's great questions: meteorology + geology = art !
Canyonlands-2


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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 10/23/2015 02:28:00 PM

4 comments:

David B. Benson said...

The eroded hollows only contain water for a short time after the infrequent summer monsoon thunderstorm.

Hank Roberts said...

They're transient, which is part of their charm:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/natural-arch-suddenly-collapses

James Annan said...

It's ok Hank, we are careful to not stand under the arches for too long :-)

Hank Roberts said...

If you're a precautionary type, you'd want to scramble quickly when the supersonic jet jockeys come over low, they've been knocking things down for decades in that area:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19720304&id=tS8gAAAAIBAJ&sjid=migEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7228,1982837&hl=en